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                                                                                                                         Ann
                                                                                                                    Racine Oct. 24th 1848

Dear Sister and brothers all,

                                                                         I arrived here night  before last, wrote a letter of five pages to Mother yesterday, & improve this next moment writing to you. This must travel 1700 miles to reach you, which it will do if prospered in a fortnight so I shall have to wait a month before hearing from any of you, which will seem very long. You see by my date that I am at Racine, Wisconsin on the western shore of Lake Michigan.
   It is a pretty village, now an incorporated city, of eight or ten years old, contains now five or six thousand inhabitants and is rapidly increasing: it stands on a bluff 40 or 50 feet above the lake to which it slopes down at one end, it looks really pleasant and is called healthy.
 I am situated in the family of the Presbyterian minister, Mr. Hopkins, whose wife has a school for young ladies, 60 pupils at present, the 'seminary' just across the street is commodious, contains four rooms and there is to be the scene of my labours: Mrs. Hopkins does not teach many of the higher branches, expects me to, while she has the main responsibility of the school & spends all her time in it: her husband has been settled as pastor three years she commenced a school when they first came, at the solicitation of a few pious persons, in order that the business of instruction here might be in the hands of Christian teachers, - has had to struggle with difficulties, cannot afford to pay a very high salary at present, but the Committee considered it a very important point to make and retains a stand here in Christian influence - there are residents here, from six or seven different nations of Europe besides different parts of the United States though chiefly settled from N.E. & N. York and Ohio. bottom of page is ripped so only some words are legible I was to receive 15 per year ? 20  ????? my situation on pleasant and ?????

[left-hand side] When you write to Olive, tell her to write to me. I do not know where to direct to her.